Missing Start Up menu

Try booting into safe mode and change those settings back. Tap f8 on boot and choose safe mode. Let me know.

 

Accouple of things to try:
Verify Auto hide is not activated by following the below steps.

Press CTRL + ESC or your Windows key to make Start menu appear.
Click Settings and choose Taskbar & Start menu
Verify that Auto Hide is not checked.
If Auto Hide is not enabled move the task bar up by following the below steps.

Press CTRL + ESC or your Windows key to make Start menu appear.
Try to notice where the Start menu appeared; generally, it should be the bottom left corner.
Press ESC. You should now notice a small gray line at the location of where the start was.
Move the mouse over that gray line, when in the appropriate position your mouse cursor should change. Once the mouse cursor changes, click and hold the mouse button and move the bar up.

HKLM>Software>Microsoft>WindowsNT>CurrentVersion>Winlogon>Shell

Edit the contents of the Shell tag to Explorer.exe

Reboot, windows should start normally...

OR

Go to regedit. Then delete these >keys :

>1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\iexplorer.exe and

>2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\explorer.exe

>3. Reboot.

 

Well....pooh ....tty this:
Hit the Windows key (i.e. the key between the Ctrl and Alt keys on the left side of the keyboard) and R together. A dialog box should pop up, when it does type "explorer" and hit enter.

 

Well how rude!!! Lets try this one:
Goto:

HKLM>Software>Microsoft>WindowsNT>CurrentVersion>Winlogon>Shell

Edit the contents of the Shell tag to Explorer.exe

Reboot, windows should start normally...if its there and entered correctly ...if its there and has been changed it's a sign of a virus.

 

After yo try Matacoubies suggestion ...if that doesn't work lets look at this:
Go to regedit. Then delete these >keys :

>1. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\iexplorer.exe and

>2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\explorer.exe

>3. Reboot.

 

Do you have this key?:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\
Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\stuckrects2
if so, what is the rest of it?

 

Remove this:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\
Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\StuckRects
Right-click on the folder named StuckRects (StuckRects2 in later Windows) > Delete. Reboot. (it will regenerate when you reboot ...but if it was corrupted ..the reboot will fix it.)(Maybe.)

Workgroup crawler??????

 

Okay .....hit the windows button (between the ctrl and alt keys) and the r button ....type in restore ...enter...should give you a box that shows rstrui folder couble click it and you should be into system restore.

 

Cr*p .....You could try a repair install ....but I'm thinking that you've got bugs ( of the virus type) ....which might get you back/might not ....at which point you will have to do a new install and reformat to wipe all out ....you could try doing the malware section:
Read and run first - Malware section
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407

But you may not be able to run any of it in the situation your in ...so try a repair (Boot with cd in drive ....enter when prompted to boot from cd ...enter when asked if want to install or recovery console (repair) ...f8 to agreement ....then it will look for previous os ...when it finds xp choose R for repair (not new install) ...will save all your files and programs and viruses ...but may give you ablility to get to malware and start working on ridding yourself of it.